In the 8th chapter of the book, the authors have discussed a number of subthemes such as defining intelligence, measuring intelligence, how intelligence is affected by the immediate environment and hereditary factors, IQ score and the related development trends, intelligence witnessed in group differences, and critique on the present viewpoints on intelligence.
In addition, McDevitt and Ormrod (2013) have given a lot of attention to research on intelligence and implications of theories. Finally, exceptionalities in intelligence among children and adolescents have equally been discussed in this chapter of the book.
The authors posit that adaptive behavior affects the intelligence of an individual. Besides, the influence of adaptive behavior is witnessed differently in various cultures. The learning and performance abilities of children are mainly determined by the degree of intelligence. However, scholars still disagree on whether intelligence is made up of several independent abilities.
There are some who argue that intelligence is merely a single entity that cannot affect the overall intellectual wellbeing of a child. In addition, most measurements carried out on intelligence tend to target the extreme cases of either mental retardation or superior learning ability.
In chapter 9, the authors have given attention to the subthemes, such as language development trends, second language development, differences in language development, and peculiarities in language development. Both feedback and reinforcement play vital roles in the development of language among children.
However, an adequate account was not given by ancient theories regarding the rapid acquisition of language by children. Various aspects of language development theories have been put forward even though the theories hardly merge with each other.
The schooling days are integral in the language development patterns of children. They acquire a lot of skills and knowledge in language patterns due to holistic interaction with both peers and adults. A natural environment provides the most beneficial setting where children can socialize freely. The latter is crucial in language development and the overall intellectual wellbeing of young learners. Children can also use complex syntactic structures to interpret and understand messages.
Young learners who go through a formal schooling system are capable of building up their vocabularies on a daily basis since they tend to acquire new words faster than adults. Even in the case whereby children desire to acquire and develop a second language, multicultural sensitivity is still a necessary requirement.
The authors have discussed some common special cases that may impede or enhance language development in children. For instance, disability has been attributed to poor development of language. A typical example is the case of children who are mentally retarded. Perhaps, the authors could have also correlated the aspects of intelligence and language acquisition. There are some children who tend to be fast learners of new language patterns largely due to the high level of Intelligence Quotient (IQ).
Children with high IQ are generally perceived to be fast learners of both first and subsequent languages. As much as the latter may be true for a wide array of case studies, we should also not ignore the contribution of genetic factor. Genes affect personality in myriads of ways.
For example, there are children who are born as talkative and sociable characters, while others are just calm and less interactive individuals. When the genetic factor is put into consideration, amazing differences in language acquisition and development among children can be found. The current perspectives on intelligence should also be used alongside the language acquisition theories in order to obtain vivid distinctions between the two extremes.
Reference
McDevitt, T. M., & Ormrod, J. E. (2013). Child development and education (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Pearson.